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In his memories, the cells of Neptune’s finest are dank and cold. Like Alcatraz. He visited Alcatraz once, with Aaron, when he was a kid. When Aaron was looking to make a movie that would catapult him into yet another Oscar race, before he went full on action star sell out who wouldn’t do a picture unless there was a large payday at the end of it.
It’s not. The cells are dark, but not cold. They’re not ominous. There is no oppressive atmosphere here. It’s just - boring.
He wants a book. Or a magazine. Or a fucking rubber ball. Anything to distract him from the fact that he’s back in the same cell he was in a decade ago. Anything to distract him from the waves of fury that pass over him. Anything to pull his attention away from his gut wrenching anticipation.
She said she’d show. She said she would come home. That she would help him. But if there’s one thing he’s learned about Veronica Mars, it’s that her reliability when it comes to making their commitments is next to nil.
And he hasn’t seen her in almost as long as it’s been since he’s been in this particular cell.
So there’s that.
He settles once more onto the stupidly uncomfortable bed, and tries not to figure out how much time has passed since he made that desperate phone call to a number he’s glad he never deleted. Tries not to wonder if she got on a plane, or whether Weevil is still hanging around an airport lounge.
And then he hears the door open. Someone is making their way down the hall; and judging by the clicking of heels against the cement, it’s a woman someone. His heart races, and a blonde head emerges from the shadows.
“There she is,” Logan calls out to her, culling back the urge to comment on the halo-like effect the limited lighting is creating. She’s never been an angel, least of all his. “Riding in to save the day, like the heroes of old.”
She’s never been an angel, but she’s been his hero for longer than he cares to admit.
“More like riding in to save your ass,” she volleys back, and he can’t help but grin at how the banter is still alive. At how her tongue is still so quick. He hops off the bunk and slides out into the open. Into the light. There’s no time for brooding. Not now, with Veronica in front of him.
He hates himself, a little bit, for feeling so alive with Kat dead. For feeling so alive because of Kat’s death. He hates himself, a little bit, for letting his eyes walk over this particular ex. And he hates himself more for the way he is pulled to her, like she never left. Because she’s gorgeous and she’s here, and his giddiness at that wars with the utter rage that fills him over why she’s returned.
He leans against the bars, as close to her as he can get. “That’s kind of like saving the day, right? I mean, I am now one of the premiere business men in this town. Saving me is basically doing your civic duty.”
He smiles, or tries to. She’s closed off. Professional, but not. Arms folded, and her mouth in that little line she always had when she was more than disappointed in him. It was the look she got when she thought he’d failed her. His giddiness slides back down into a pool of anger.
He’d fantasized about bumping into her again. Of course he had. She was the only person he’d depended on, for so long, and then she’d just left him. And he’d made a life for himself, beyond her. He’d left the parts of his life behind that he couldn’t look on proudly in the light of day. He’d done it for himself, after he’d gotten over self-destructing. But a little bit of him always wanted her to see it, to approve of it. To approve of him and the life he was living. Not because he needed it, but just because she was his life for so long.
And now, when she comes home, it’s because he’s called her here. Because he’s in the same place he was when he was seventeen.
He hasn’t grown at all in her eyes, and he hates that it hurts so much.
“It’s amazing how your ego hasn’t decreased even one iota since I’ve been gone,” Veronica tells him, and he wants to laugh at the idea that he has one at all. “You’re a premiere business man now?”
She asks it, and every bit of mirth fades away.
“Uh, yeah,” he stumbles. “I thought you would know. With your tendency to, you know, stalk people.”
“I haven’t looked you up since I left.”
She says it softly, like she’s trying to break it to him gently, and he falls back. It hurts more than it should. It hurts more than almost a decade of separation should allow it to. But he wanted her to look him up. Wanted her to at least think of him, the way he thought of her. It is selfish, but he wanted her to miss him. And now, it’s clear that she didn’t. He wants to ask why she bothered coming back at all.
He doesn’t, though. Because he needs this. He needs her here, to solve this case. He can’t spend his life in prison for a murder he didn’t commit.
Third time’s the charm, he thinks, and this is the third time he’s been accused. This might be the time they lock him up for good.
“Have to say,” he manages to get out, “I didn’t see that one coming. Kind of explains how you didn’t know about Weevil’s employment though.”
He sees her start to speak, and then bite her lip, and whatever she was going to say slips away. What she does say is, “Yeah, well, clean break.”
“From everyone?”
“Mostly. I mean, I obviously still talk to my dad. And still see him. Am still practically co-dependent, even though a continent separates us. And Wallace. And Mac. But no one else.”
“There weren’t really a lot of other people to start,” Logan grinds out, because there weren’t. There were only two, and those two were Weevil and him. She made a clean break from just two of them, and he wants to punch something, hard, like he hasn’t in a long time.
“You want to tell me what happened?” she asks, and he doesn’t. He doesn’t want to lay his life bare for her anymore. He doesn’t want to talk to her about finding Kat dead on his floor and how his first thought wasn’t anything other than, “Fuck, not again”.
He doesn’t want to do anything, say anything, that makes her think she was right for choosing to make him one of the only two people she truly left.
So, he plays the asshole. It’s a role that fits as well today as it did a decade ago, and when he’s an asshole it doesn’t hurt when she leaves him. At least, not as much.
“Met a girl, fell in love.” He stops there, and watches for any kind of reaction. She doesn’t give him one. Which, by Veronica Mars standards, is like Christmas. The only reason to not react, he thinks, is because she is actually reacting. Convoluted, but that’s Veronica. He moves on. “That girl disappeared on me, so I did some drugs, got in some fights, drank, heavily, and then straightened out my life. Started actually, what was it, reaching my potential. Mac helped me put together my portfolio and introduced me to some other computer geniuses who decided to stay local, and I used my considerable funds to do some charity work. Rebuilt a community pool. Agitated for more affordable kindercare and other after school activities for low income kids. Developed a panel of like-minded businessmen and businessmen who I could bully into being like-minded, and then met a woman. A pop star. She was supposed to be an ambassador. A sexy face for a planned expansion beyond city lines. And she was - well, attractive, and I’m, well - and we started dating. And now she’s dead.”
“Thanks for the quick and dirty,” she drawls, “but I’m going to need more details about the pop star. Name, age, birth place, what your relationship was like, what her friends were like, where you two went most often, and where you were when she was killed.”
“You don’t know her name?” He doesn’t know why this strikes him as funny, but it does.
He watches her give a tiny huff in response. “I got your call and immediately started working on getting home, so no, I don’t know her name.”
“She’s an up and coming pop star. You should have heard her hit on the radio,” he rebuts, and Veronica shrugs at him.
“I don’t listen to the radio,” she answers flatly, and his incredulity rises.
“What kind of person doesn’t listen to the radio?”
“The kind who has a subscription to Spotify and is able to curate her own playlists without having some nebulous person dictate what she listens to and when. Now, name?”
“Her real name is Katherine. Boscove. Her stage name is Katrina Bliss.”
“Bliss?” Veronica’s disgust is palpable, and he holds in his snort.
“It’s sexier than Boscove,” he teases.
“I suppose it is.”
“She was 20, her birth place was somewhere in Idaho or Indiana or Iowa, one of those ‘I’ states, and I didn’t meet a lot of her friends. I spent some time with her crew, and they’re all the usual types. You remember - they’re basically all Trinas.” He shrugs, and runs his hand along one of the bars. Anchoring himself to the here and now, instead of the past. “Or that woman who was my mom’s BFF for years before she was caught in a compromising position with dear old Aaron.”
“I forgot about that woman,” Veronica murmurs, and Logan nods.
“I wish I could. Anyway. Kat - she liked to be seen. Photographed. Whatever. We’d go out to eat a lot. Meet up, have a meal, and then she would go off to work on her record or promotion work.” He hadn’t really enjoyed it, but it was something she needed. And he understood that kind of need. To be seen. To be wanted. “We hit a couple of red carpets, and talked about seeing that new movie, the one about the end of the world?”
“There are like, ten of those out right now,” she tells him, and he laughs. Doesn’t listen to the radio, does still love movies. Check.
“Right, of course. Anyway, we never got around to doing that. It was nice. Simple. Sweet. She liked me, and I liked her. We weren’t at the stage yet where we were exposing our deep dark secrets,” he tells her meaningfully, “but it was - there might have been something there.”
“What about that night?” she persists, and he shrugs.
“She came over for a little bit. I left, and when I came back, I found her. So, I called 911 and was promptly arrested and brought here, where cell B is just not reaching the standards of accommodation it used to. And then I called you.”
It’s like a fog. He remembers reaching for her, touching her arm, before pulling himself back. He remembers sitting there for a second, thinking, “Oh fuck, not again”, and then sitting there some more. He remembers seriously thinking about leaving the country, and then realizing that the only person he knew who could do that was gone. And then dialing the Neptune Sheriff’s department. And then nothing until handcuffs.
As soon as the metal hit his wrists, he knew he was going to call Veronica.
She starts to nod, and stops. “Wait - if she came over to your place, why did you leave her there?”
He glares at her, wants above all else for her to just let this go. This was the part he didn’t tell Sacks, or the new Sheriff Lamb. This is the part he was hoping to keep under wraps. The part where he had motive. But she just sits there, with a serenely smooth look on her face, and he knows she’s going to win.
“We fought.”
“About what?” He glares at her again, warning her off, but she just shrugs. “I need to know, Logan. If you don’t tell me, I don’t have anywhere to look.”
“It was - she thinks - she thought - I flirt too much. With people who aren’t her.”
Her eyebrow goes up. “You probably do.”
It’s the matter of fact tone she has that infuriates him, that makes him wish he could up and walk away from her too. “You never complained.”
Her jaw twitches, and she looks away from him. “Yeah, I didn’t. But I felt it.”
“Then why didn’t you - you know what, nevermind. It doesn’t matter. What matters is Kat thought that, I stormed out, and then when I came back, she was dead.” She nods at him, and he slaps his hands onto his legs. Leans back, and waits.
“Do you remember the time? When you stormed out?”
“Had to be after six thirty. But before Jeopardy, because that was playing when I got to the gym.”
She snickers, and he huffs at her, irritated that she’s judging his old man television habits.
“Laugh all you want, but it’s educational, and it distracts from the actual monotony of gym life. And if I make goal or answer enough questions, I treat myself to an ice cream.”
“Amy’s?” she asks wistfully, and he wants to promise that he’ll buy her a cone as soon as she gets him out. He almost tells her it’ll be a date, before stopping himself.
She doesn’t want to date him. She’s made that perfectly clear. And he’s not too keen on dating her right now, either. She ran away from him and almost only him.
But he can’t help but smile at her all the same. Because he sees them getting ice cream together there, like it was yesterday. Twelve year old her getting cotton candy while he gets rasbury. Sixteen year old her getting smores while he gets coffee. Nineteen year old her routinely getting something that turns her lips blue, while he gets butter pecan.
“Yeah. Amy’s.”
“So, between 6:30 and 7, then,” she concludes, and he nods.
“Yeah.”
“That should be enough to go on, at least for now,” she tells him flatly. “Try to not go too stir crazy in here.
“Well, they can’t put my dad in as my cell mate, so I’m already heads and shoulders above my worst visit.”
“I’ll fill you in, if I find anything.”
It’s a goodbye, and he knows it. So he just waves her away, and watches her get up. Watches her getting ready to leave him again. Her jaw twitches again, and this time she doesn’t stop herself.
“I didn’t bring it up because I was afraid you’d just leave. Like you did to her. But, yeah, it bothered me. Every time you’d step away from me when a pretty girl walked by, every time a girl called me your friend and you didn’t correct them, it bothered me.” Her voice warbles and he stares at her, at this new Veronica who is willing to let him in to the places she hurts. “I know it’s who you are, and I know you like what you get out of it, but it was just another piece of intel letting me know you weren’t in it for the long haul. It wasn’t out of jealousy. Not entirely, I mean. It was just - I knew you were looking for something better.”
Logan burns. It burns to think she believed this - believes this. It burns to think that she would ever believe he would have left her for wanting him. For needing something from him.
“Veronica,” his voice creaks, and he watches her avoid his eyes. “When I was with you, I wasn’t looking for anyone else. And there couldn’t have been anyone better. You were the only person I saw.”
“It felt like you were. And, really, it doesn’t matter anymore.”
“Sure, it does,” he argues, because he can’t let her think that of him, of her. “It matters a lot. If we’d talked about this crap, we would have -”
“Broken up anyway, because we were nineteen years old, Logan. Something else would have happened. And you were who you were and I was who I was, and there were parts of us that just didn’t fit together. You know it.” She says it with finality, like it’s written somewhere. Like no nineteen year olds have ever made it work, and it infuriates him.
“You don’t know that,” he tells her, crossing his arms.
“It doesn’t matter, anyway,” she says quickly, “because it’s been years and we didn’t and it doesn’t matter. Because you obviously moved on. And so did I.”
He knows her game, and just snorts, as he turns away from her to keep from fighting more. He’s not going to change her mind by arguing with her from a jail cell. “So, uh, you going to be my lawyer and my private eye?”
“I can’t,” she tells him, “because I haven’t taken the bar yet. And if I had, I’d still only be able to defend you in New York. So you should try to be accused of dastardly crime in New York next time.”
He softly smiles at her, and he watches as she smiles back. It blossoms across her face, and she’s the most beautiful woman he’s ever seen. “Nah, you could. I remember my Legally Blonde. You just need a licensed attorney to vouch for you or something.”
“Well, as long as we’re getting legal advice from romantic comedies, I think we’ll win this,” she answers wryly, and then coughs. “Who’s your lawyer? I’ll ask about bail.”
Bail. He thinks about The Incident, the one Cliff was quick to berate him about when Logan got around to calling him after calling Veronica. He should tell her, he knows. He should give her the heads up. But she’s looking at him like she likes him, and he doesn’t want to stop that.
She’s going to find out, and she’s going to kill him. But for right now, he wants this lull, this peace. It may be a long time before he gets it again.
So instead, he just answers her question. “Who do you think? Cliff.”
“Cliff? Like, Cliff-Cliff?”
She sounds stunned, and looks like he’s told her he has walked on the moon. “McCormack, yeah. Man with a voice of melted butter? Why wouldn’t I hire him?”
“Um,” she says, “Because you’re apparently one of the wealthiest men in Neptune, sans trust fund, and Cliff is a lawyer who can be and is regularly hired by hookers?”
“Yeah. That’s the guy. He does good work. And I know he’s not as twisted as some of the other lawyers, because he’s got the seal of approval from one Veronica Mars. He is your lawyer when you’re in town, is he not?”
“Yeah. Because I know no other lawyers and he’ll work for free as long as I do him favors. That’s not a ringing endorsement,” she retorts.
Logan presses a finger to his mouth to keep his grin from overtaking his face. “So, you don’t like Cliff then.”
“I love Cliff,” she tells him. “I just don’t think Cliff is murder trial material. And I don’t think he thinks he is either.”
“He doesn’t,” Logan tells her cheerfully. “He told me to hire a different lawyer. He said this was too much work for him. It makes me like him all the more.”
“Logan -”
He stops, gets serious. “Veronica, I didn’t kill her. Do you believe me?”
She looks away, and breathes deep. He waits for her answer. Hopes it’s the one he wants.
“You know I do.” She looks back at him, and pleading and earnest. “But I’m not going to be on the jury. And I don’t want this coming down to an attorney who advertises on the backs of bus stops and a private eye who’s been out of the biz for almost a decade. I don’t want to screw this up for you, and I need you to not screw this up for yourself. Can you do that?”
“You’re worried.” It comes at him from nowhere. Veronica is worried. It soothes a bit of the hurt from before.
She lets out a hysterical giggle. “Of course I am, Logan. I’m rusty and this is your life and if I mess up, I don’t get to see you again. And I don’t want to leave anything to chance here, and you’re leaving everything to chance.”
He presses his face against the bars, suddenly eager to reassure her, to chase away her self doubt. He doesn’t remember a time when Veronica wasn’t self assured or perfectly confident in her PI abilities. He doesn’t want there to ever be such a time.
“Hey, hey. You listen to me. I have been in a lot of jams. I’ve had the high priced lawyers.” He pauses. “And I’ve even hired a couple of PIs who weren’t you in my time, even though I was appalled when they charged me. So, I know. This isn’t a risk. Even after - everything - you still care enough about me to fly across the country. And Cliff is good enough that he won’t stab me in the back. And that’s what I need. I need people on my side who I can depend on. I’ve had those other people, Veronica. And at the end of the day, you don’t get what you pay for. I want you. And I want Cliff. And if I fry, at least I know that you were working for me and not the dollar.”
It’s what he knows. Veronica will fight for him. Cliff will work for him. He doesn’t need anything else right now. He just needs that. And he needs her to believe that too.
She sniffles, and he pretends he doesn’t notice. “Okay.”
“Okay.” He leans back. Gets back on track. “So what’s the next step?”
He watches as she slips back into work mode, and it’s as sexy as it has ever been. Probably moreso now. “I’m going to go talk to Cliff. See how far he’s gotten. You know. Preliminary work. I’ll probably be back.”
“Or, you could solve the case and get me out of here. That would work too.”
“Just so I know how that fits into your schedule.”
He smiles again, and leans against the bars. If she can be honest with him, he thinks he can return the favor too. “I missed you. I’m glad you’re home.”
“Me too.” It’s low and it’s weak, but it’s there. She’s glad she’s home. She missed him.
It isn’t a lot to hold on to, he thinks as she leaves. It isn’t any declaration beyond agreement. It isn’t anything that gives him hope that she’ll be staying. But it’s enough to keep him calm. It’s enough to help stave off the boredom.
She’s glad she’s home.